Lecture: REGIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ENGLISH VOCABULARY
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The main variants of the English language
Variants of English outside the British Isles
Peculiarities of British and American English
Variants of English in the United Kingdom
Local Dialects
1. The main variants of the English language.
In Modern linguistics the distinction is made between Standard English,
territorial variants, and local dialects of the English language.
Standard English may be defined as that form of English which is current and
literary, accepted and understood either within an English speaking country or
throughout the entire English speaking world.
Variants of English are regional varieties possessing a literary norm. There
are distinguished variants existing on the territory of the United Kingdom (British
English, Scottish English, Irish English) and the variants existing outside the British
Isles (American English, Canadian English, New Zealand English, South African
English, Indian English). They are variants of the same language because they serve
all spheres of verbal communication. Their structural peculiarities, especially
morphology, syntax and word-formation, as well as their word-stock and phonetic
system are essentially the same.
British English is often referred to the written Standard English and the
pronunciation known as Received Pronunciation (RP).
Local dialects are varieties of English peculiar to some districts, used as
means of oral communication in small localities, they possess no literary form.
2. Variants of English outside the British Isles
American English is the variety of the English language spoken in Canada. In
the last fifty years, America has become an object of envy because it dominates as the
most powerful country and combines technology and scientific progress. American
influence is a phenomenon appearing in all languages. One may notice an intrusion of
Americanisms in the press, radio, television.
When we speak of Americanisms, we mean words of English used in the USA.
Many coinages that were originally Americanisms have been fully incorporated into
British English and their origin is no longer recognized: to advocate, cold war, hot
air, immigrant, live wire, radio, teenager.
Canadian English is the variety of the English language spoken in Canada.
In many respects, the spelling of Canadian English is intermediate between
British English and American English. However, the spoken language is much closer
to American English than to British English. It is also influenced by Canadian
French, as Canada has both English and French as official languages.
Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other variants of English, it
tends to be closer to American than to British English. However, some terms in
standard Canadian English are shared with British, not with American English, e.g.,
Tory for a Canadian politician from the Conservative party, busker for a street
performer.
Canadian English also has its own words not found in other variants of English
(The Canadian Oxford Dictionary in 1998). Specifically Canadian words are called
Canadianisms, e.g., parkade - parking garage, chesterfield – sofa, couch.
There may also be meaning differences in words and expressions used in
Canadian English and in other variants of the English language, e.g., to table a
document – to present it (in Canadian English), – to withdraw it from consideration
(American English).
Australian English is the variety of the English language spoken in Australia.
Due to the predominance of foreign mass media products in the country,
Australians are familiar with at least some of the variants of modern English and they
may have adopted some of the distinctive vocabulary and idioms of those variants of
the English language.
Australian English incorporates several uniquely Australian terms, such as
outback – to refer to remote regional areas, walkabout – to refer to a long journey of
uncertain length and bush – to refer to native forested areas, but also to regional areas
as well. Some elements of Aboriginal languages, as has already been mentioned, have
been incorporated into Australian English, mainly as names for the indigenous flora
and fauna (e.g., dingo, kangaroo), as well as extensive borrowings for place names.
Beyond that, very few terms have been adopted into the wider language. A notable
exception is Cooee (a musical call which travels long distances in the bush and is
used to say "is there anyone there?"). Although often thought of as an Aboriginal
word, didgeridoo/didjeridu (a well known wooden musical instrument) is actually an
onomatopoeic term coined by an English settler.
One more peculiar feature of Australian English is a unique set of diminutives
formed by adding –o or –ie to the ends (often abbreviated) words, e.g., arvo –
afternoon, servo – service station, Barbie – barbecue, bikkie – biscuits.
New Zealand English is the variety of the English language spoken in New
Zealand.
New Zealand English is close to Australian English in pronunciation. Possibly
the only difference between New Zealand and British spelling is in the ending of -ise
or -ize. New Zealanders use the –ise ending exclusively, whereas Britons use either.
Many local words in New Zealand English, largely borrowed from the Maori
population, have arisen to describe the local flora, fauna, and the natural
environment, e.g., the names of birds (kiwi), the name of fish (shellfish), the names
of native trees (kauri) and many others.
It is in idioms, in different metaphoric phrases that New Zealand English has
made progress or divergence. For example, the phrase sticky beak is used to describe
someone unduly curious about people’s affairs. In Australia sticky beak is quite
pejorative, to be called sticky beak is definitely a criticism whereas in New Zealand it
is used with more affection and usually as a tease.
South African English is the variety of the English language used in South
Africa and surrounding countries, notably Namibia and Zimbabwe. South African
English is not unified in pronunciation: this can be attributed to the fact that English
is the mother tongue only for 40% of the white inhabitants and only a tiny minority of
black inhabitants of the region. South African English spoken by the whites bears
some resemblance in pronunciation to a mix of Australian English and British
English.
In South African English there are words that do not exist in British or
America English, usually derived from African languages, e.g., bra, bru – male
friend, dorp – a small rural town or village, sat – dead, passed away.
There are also a few unique words and expressions in South African English,
in which common English words take on new meanings, e.g., boy – a black man,
township – urban area for black, coloured or Indian South Africans under apartheid,
book of life – national identity document.
Several South African words have entered world English, e.g., apartheid – a
policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race, trek – a long
arduous journey, especially one made on foot.
Indian English is the variety of the English language spoken widely in India.
The language that the Indians are taught at school is essentially British English.
However, the British left India in 1947 and therefore many phrases that the British
may consider antique are still popular in India. Official letters continue to include
phrases like please do the needful, your obedient servant. In addition, Indian English
mixes in various words from Indian languages, e.g., bandh or hartal for strikes,
challan for traffic ticket. Some words have regularly been entering the Oxford
English Dictionary, e.g., jungle, bungalow, pyjama.
Despite the fact that British English is an official language of Government in
India, there are words and expressions that can be regarded as those used only in
Indian English, e.g., crore – ten million, scheduled tribe – a socially/ economically
backward Indian tribe given special privileges by government.
3. Peculiarities of British and American English.
The American variant of the English language differs from British English in
pronunciation, some minor features of grammar, spelling standards and
vocabulary.
The American spelling is in some respect simpler than its British counterpart.
The spelling differences:
- our/ -or colour
color
honour
honor
-ou/ -o
favourite favorite
-re/ -er
centre
center
-gue/ -g
catalogue catalog
dialogue
dialog
-ise/ -ize
realise
realize
-xion/ -ction reflexion reflection
сonnexion connection
-ll-/ -lmodelling modeling
-ae-/ -eanaemia
anemia
Speaking about lexical differences between the two variants of the English
language, the following cases are of importance:
1. Cases where there are no equivalent words in one of the variants. For
example, British English has no equivalent to the American word drive-in ('a cinema
or restaurant that one can visit without leaving one's car').
2. Cases where different words are used for the same denotatum, e.g. sweets
(BrE) – candy (AmE); reception clerk (BrE) – desk clerk (AmE), flat – apartment,
underground – subway, lorry – truck, pavement – sidewalk, post – mail, tin-opener –
can-opener, government – administration.
3. Cases where some words are used in both variants but are much commoner
in one of them. For example, shop and store are used in both variants, but the former
is frequent in British English and the latter – in American English, post – mail,
timetable – schedule, notice – bulletin the first word is more frequent in Britain, the
second – in America. So the difference here lies only in word-frequency.
4. Cases where the same words have different semantic structure in British
English and American English. For example, the word homely used to describe a
person in British English means 'home-loving, domesticated, house-proud', while in
American English this word denotes 'unattractive in appearance'. faculty, but denoting
'all the teachers and other professional workers of a university or college' this word is
used only in American English. As a rule, such words may have analogous
oppositions to one of these lexico-semantic variants in another variant of English or
in Standard English, e.g. AmE faculty – BrE/SE teaching staff.
5. In some cases the connotational aspect of meaning of such words comes to
the fore. For example, the word politician in British English possesses the meaning 'a
person who is professionally involved in polities', thus it is rather neutral, whereas in
American English this word is derogatory as it means 'a person who acts in a
manipulative and devious way, typically to gain advancement within an organisation'.
6. Some words may be called proper Americanisms as they were coined by the
early Americans which had to find names for the new environment (flora and fauna)
and the new conditions of life, e.g., redbud – an American tree having small budlike
pink flowers, the state tree of Oklahoma (багряник).
7. One more group of Americanisms is represented by American shortenings.
These are shortenings which were produced on American soil, but may be used in
other variants of English as well, e.g., dorm (dormitory), cert (certainty).
8. Besides, British English and American English have their own derivational
peculiarities that are usually confined to the frequency with which a certain pattern or
a means of word-formation is used. For example, some of the affixes more frequently
used in American English are: -ee (draftee – 'a young man about to be enlisted'), -ster
(roadster – 'motor-car for long journeys by road'), super-(super-market – 'a very
large shop that sells food and other products for the home'). American English
sometimes favours words that are morphologically more complex, whereas British
English uses clipped forms, cf: AmE transportation – BrE transport. In some cases
the formation of words by means of affixes is more preferable in American English
while in British English the form is a back-formation, cf.: AmE burglarize – BrE
burgle (from burglar).
4. Variants of English in the United Kingdom
Besides British English which is often regarded as a collective term for the
forms of English spoken on the British Isles, two other variants of the English
language existing on the territory of the UK, Scottish and Irish English can be singled
out.
Scottish English is considered the variant of the English language spoken in
Scotland. Scottish English has a long tradition as a separate written and spoken
variety. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ sometimes substantially from other
variants of English existing on the territory of the British Isles.
The uniqueness of Scottish English can be explained by its historical
development. For almost three centuries, Scottish English has shaded into, and
compromised with, both Scots on one side and the usage of England and Ireland on
the other. Most people range from kinds of urban and rural Scots through mixed
usage to kinds of Scottish Standard English. In addition, three sources of tension
affected greatly the development of Scottish English: 1) the tension between Scotland
and England; 2) the tension between Highlands and Lowlands; 3) the tension between
Protestants and Catholics.
The identity of Scottish English reflects an institutionalized social structure, as
it is most noticeable in the realms of law, local government, religion, and education,
and raises problems of intelligibility that have no parallel elsewhere in Britain.
Among lexical peculiarities of Scottish English the following linguistic facts
are of importance: 1) some semantic fields are structured differently in Scottish
English and in British English. For example, the term minor in British English is used
to denote a person below the age of 18 years, while Scottish law distinguishes
between pupils (to age 12 for girls and 14 for boys) and minors (older children up to
18); 2) some words used in Scottish English have equivalents in British English, e.g.
(ScE) extortion – (BrE) blackmail; 3) a great deal of the distinctiveness of Scottish
English derives from the influence of other languages, especially Gaelic,
Norweigean, and French. For example, Gaelic borrowings include: cairn – 'a pile of
stones that marks the top of a mountain or some other special place', sporran – 'a
small furry bag that hangs in front of a man's kilt as part of traditional Scottish dress';
4) there are also many words which have the same form, but different meanings in
Scottish English and British English. For example, the word gate in Scottish English
means 'road'; 5) some Scottish words and expressions are used and understood across
virtually the whole country, e.g. dinnae ('don't'), wee ('small'), kirk ('church'), lassie
('girl').
Irish English is considered the variant of the English language used in Ireland.
It is also widely referred to as Hiberno-English or Anglo-Irish. Anglo-Irish is the
oldest, long associated with people of mainly English origin. As a result the term is
socially and historically ambiguous, and Irish people are often uncomfortable with it.
It does not therefore work well as a cover term for all usage in Ireland. The term
Hiberno-English avoids this difficulty, but runs the other way: it tends to exclude the
Anglo-Irish and the descendants of Protestant settlers. And Irish English is
transparent and is unlikely to be misinterpreted.
Therefore Irish English subsumes all the Englishes of the island, and other
terms stand for subvarieties. The two main politico-linguistic divisions are Southern
and Northern, within and across which further varieties are Anglo-Irish, HibernoEnglish, Ulster Scots, and the usage of the two capitals, Dublin and Belfast.
The Irish English vocabulary is characterized by the following distinctive
features: 1) the presence of words with the same form as in British English but
different meanings in Irish English, e. g. backward – 'shy'; to doubt – 'to believe
strongly'; bold – 'naughty'; 2) the use of most regionally marked words by older, often
rural people, e.g. biddable – 'obedient'; feasant – 'affable'; 3) the presence of nouns
taken from Irish which often relate either to food or the supernatural, e.g. banshee –
'fairy woman' from bean sidhe; 4) the presence of words typical only of Irish English
(the so-called Irishisms), e.g. begorrah – 'by God'; 5) the layer of words shared with
Scottish English, e.g. ova – 'at all'; greet – 'cry, weep'; brae – 'hill, steep slope'.
Besides distinctive features in lexis Irish English has grammatical, phonetical
and spelling peculiarities of its own, e. g. the use of 'does be/ do be' construction in
the following phrase: "They do be talking on their mobiles a lot". In Irish English the
plural form of you is distinguished from the singular, normally by using the archaic
English word ye to denote plurality, e.g.: "Did ye all go to see it?".
5. Local Dialects
There are five main groups of local dialects in Great Britain: Northern,
Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. The close links existing between some of
the dialects make it possible to unite them into two major groups: 1) Southern dialects
and 2) Northern and Midlands dialects.
One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of
London. This dialect exists on two levels. As spoken by the educated lower middle
classes it is a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in
vocabulary and syntax. As spoken by the uneducated, Cockney differs from Standard
English not only in pronunciation but also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax.
Cockney is lively and witty and its vocabulary is imaginative and colourful. Its
specific feature is the so-called rhyming slang, in which some words are substituted
by other words rhyming with them. Boots, for instance, are called daisy roots, hat is
tit for tat and wife – trouble and strife.
Some specifically Cockney words and phrases are: balmy, barmy, noun or
adjective meaning 'mentally unbalanced', toff 'a person of the upper class', up the pole
'drunk'.
In recent decades a new dialect called Estuary English has been gaining
prominence. Estuary English is the variety of the English language common in the
South-East of England, especially along the river Thames and its estuary. It is a
hybrid of Received Pronunciation (RP) and a number of South-Eastern dialects,
particularly from the London and Essex areas. Among the most notable lexical
features of the Estuary English dialect is the use of Cockney words and phrases as
well as words from American and Australian English.
Estuary English is very popular among the young probably because it is said to
obscure social origins – very often it is adopted as a neutral dialect. It increases
"street cred" among the young from an RP background and young people with local
dialects and accents adopt it because it sounds more "sophisticated". Estuary English
speakers are to be found "grouped in the middle ground", but it can be heard in the
House of Commons as well as being used by some of the members of the Lords. It
can be heard on the BBC and it is well established among the businessmen in the
City.
One of the representatives of the group of Northern and Midlands dialects is
the Yorkshire dialect. As Yorkshire is on the linguistic border of Northern and
North-Midland varieties of English, it shares some of their characteristics.
Yorkshire is the dialect spoken by the majority of people in the English county
of York. As there is much variation within the dialect it is usually discussed in terms
of the three Ridings that correspond to the historical administration areas of North,
East and South Yorkshire. The prodigious variation in vocabulary arises from both
the historical settlement patterns of the various European invaders and the later
linguistic changes following the settlement, cf.: armpit (Standard English) – oxter
(North Riding) – armpit (East Riding) – armhole (West Riding).
It was in Yorkshire that Anglo-Saxon speakers mixed with Scandinavian
settlers in the market places, etc., during the period from the 8th to the 11th centuries,
and engaged in a simplified speech to make themselves understood to each other,
dropping gender, word endings, complex conjugations, etc. The result was the birth
of a simplified Middle English that spread throughout England; a revolution speeded
up after the Norman Conquest. These facts explain the remarkable resemblance that
some Yorkshire words have in relation to their Scandinavian counterparts, a
testimony to their historical origins, cf: child (Standard English) – bairn (Yorshire
dialect) – barn (Modern Norwegian).
Some words in Yorkshire dialect at first sight seem to be Standard English but
they have different meanings. For example, the word real is used in the Yorkshire
dialect to describe something good or outstanding, it has nothing to do with
genuineness as compared with the meaning of this word in Standard English. It is,
however, not only purely words which contribute to the distinctiveness of the
Yorkshire dialect but also the variety of idiomatic expressions, e.g. allus at t’ last
push up – 'always at the last moment'; nobbut a mention – 'just a small amount'.
Dialects are now chiefly preserved in rural communities, in the speech of
elderly people. They are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard
English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and
other means of the mass media.
LOCAL DIALECTS IN THE USA
The English language in the United States is characterized by relative
uniformity throughout the country. Written American English is fairly standardized
across the country. However, there is some variation in the spoken language. Three
major belts of dialects, each with its own characteristic features, are identified:
Northern, Midland and Southern.
The Northern division includes the New England settlement, New York, and
The Hudson Valley, northern Pennsylvania and Ohio, and beyond. The Connecticut
River is usually regarded as the southern/ western extent of New England speech.
Chief among the local variations existing on the border between the Northern and
Midland dialects are those prevailing in and around New York City and northern
New Jersey. The New York dialect is famous worldwide due to countless movies and
television programs. It is spoken by a significant portion of native-born residents of
New York City and its immediate vicinity in southeastern New York State. The New
Jersey dialect spoken in northern New Jersey is simply a softer version of the English
language spoken by residents of New York and is very frequently mistaken for it.
Most colloquial greetings and expressions used in New York are also said by New
Jerseyans and with the same frequency.
A distinctive speech pattern was also generated by the separation of Canada
from the United States, centered on the Great Lakes region. This is the Inland North
dialect – the "standard Midwestern" speech that is generally considered free from
regional marking in the United States of America. Standard Midwestern is the dialect
used by many American network television broadcasters. Individuals from the
Midwestern US sometimes have difficulty in understanding other dialects of English,
because most other dialects, both in the US and abroad, place less stress on
consonants and on syllables in the middle of words. Since Slavic languages stress
consonants even more heavily than does Standard Midwestern, a Russian who learns
English extremely well often sounds almost Midwestern. This is especially noticeable
in the speech of interpreters for important Russian officials.
Midland speech is divided into two discrete subdivisions, the North Midland
and South Midland speech. The North Midland dialect extends from southern New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, west into Ohio and beyond. The North Midland speech
continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related speech of
California. The South Midland speech starts from northern Delaware along the Blue
Ridge Mountains of Virginia, follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly
direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters
out in western Texas. This is the dialect associated with truck drivers on the Citizens'
band and country music.
The Southern division comprises the southern two-thirds of Delaware, the
eastern parts of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and the
Gulf States (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the south-east parts of
Texas).
There is also one ethnic variety in the United States, African-American
Vernacular English (also called Ebonics), that has gained national prominence and
influenced usage from coast to coast. This dialect is used in many African-American
communities in the USA, especially in urban areas. African-American Vernacular
English has been widely used in popular entertainment and has spread in informal
settings, especially among the young and with emphasis on trendy slang, verbal
games, and such music-related activities as jazz and rap. It has its origin in the culture
of enslaved Americans and also has roots in England. African-American Vernacular
English is largely based on the Southern American English variety. There is much
controversy over the linguistic status of African-American Vernacular English in the
United States. Opinions range from it deserving official language status in the US to
it being dismissed.